Hums

Slim encapsulates the essence of this truth as he hums through feelings of anger, pain and despair to achieve a level of catharsis as he tells a story of a friend who was lynched.

You hear that theme in how singing makes the time pass for the workers in the cotton rows, and in the scene when Slim tells a story about a friend who got lynched and the man’s screams echo into the present until Slim hums and drums his fingertips to overwhelm the sound of all that pain.

On this Friday, the kitchen hums with activity.

A man helps lift a sack of dry food on to the shoulder of another, who then hums as he makes his way back to his makeshift home.

“And then I started working, and at some moment I just put my hand on the piano and I went” — the composer hums a rising-falling bass line.